What specific provisions in Project 2025 and GOP federal bills would change election administration ahead of 2026?
Executive summary
Republican federal bills under consideration — most prominently the SAVE America Act, the Make Elections Great Again (MEGA) Act and related House GOP proposals — would centralize new federal rules for voter ID, proof of citizenship and limits on mail voting, while Project 2025 provides an overlapping blueprint for using executive power, personnel changes and federal enforcement to reshape how elections are run [1] [2] [3]. Critics warn these twin tracks would both change rules on the books and create new levers to pressure, investigate or remove state and local election officials; supporters frame the measures as restoring election integrity [1] [4] [5].
1. What the GOP bills would change on paper: national ID, citizenship checks, and mail-vote limits
Legislation floated by House Republicans would impose several sweeping, uniform requirements nationwide, including a federal photo-ID requirement for in-person voting, a proof-of-citizenship requirement when registering, and statutory limits on absentee and mail voting procedures — measures described as the most significant federal changes to election law in decades and grouped in bills like the SAVE America Act and the MEGA Act [1] [2]. Sponsors such as Rep. Bryan Steil have drafted text to set national standards rather than leave these decisions to states, and advocates say the changes would standardize and raise identification and registration standards across jurisdictions [1].
2. Project 2025’s administration-and-enforcement playbook for elections
Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation-led transition manual, goes beyond discrete voting-rule prescriptions to recommend executive actions, personnel reshuffles and aggressive use of federal prosecutorial and administrative power to influence election governance, including recommending investigations of state officials and leveraging federal agencies to access state records [3] [6] [5]. Analyses by watchdog groups and the Brennan Center warn Project 2025 articulates tactics to “chill” local safeguards and to weaponize federal authority against officials who implement state-level rules inconsistent with national preferences [4] [5].
3. New data access, social-media constraints, and oversight mechanisms
Project 2025 proposals and some GOP bill language would expand federal access to state databases and promote oversight tools: Project 2025 explicitly calls for federal access to DMV and voter-registration databases for jurisdictions receiving certain federal funding, and it urges legal and regulatory pressure on platforms that moderate political content — a change that watchdogs say could protect disinformation under the guise of viewpoint protections [5]. Separately, the federal government has already pursued litigation and executive steps, suing states for voter-file access and issuing an elections-focused executive order, signaling how new statutory authority could be paired with legal pressure [1].
4. Enforcement, prosecutions, and the human levers of control
A key practical change is not simply new rules but new enforcement apparatus: Project 2025 envisions using the Justice Department and federal prosecutors to investigate or prosecute officials for discretionary election decisions, and critics cite early examples of federal officials targeting election-related actors as precedent for this enforcement approach [4] [5]. The move to consolidate executive hiring and firing authority across the federal bureaucracy under the Project’s broader agenda would also make it easier to staff federal oversight roles with loyalists who could escalate audits, subpoenas or criminal referrals tied to elections [6] [3].
5. Practical effects, contested benefits, and political stakes ahead of 2026
Advocates argue national standards would eliminate confusion and fraud and restore public confidence, but analysts and election-administration groups warn the combined package — uniform ID/citizenship rules, limits on mail voting, expanded federal access to state systems, and tougher enforcement powers — would likely increase litigation, produce uneven implementation across states, heighten turnover among local officials, and politicize routine administration ahead of the 2026 midterms [1] [2] [4]. Reporting and expert tracking make clear these proposals represent both statutory changes and an administrative playbook that together could reshape who runs elections and how disputes over ballots are resolved [1] [3] [4].
Conclusion
The substantive provisions in GOP bills — photo ID, proof-of-citizenship registration checks, and curbs on mail voting — would change election rules; Project 2025 supplies the personnel, enforcement and federal-access strategies that would operationalize and police those rules, with opponents warning of weaponization and proponents arguing for stronger integrity measures [1] [3] [4] [5]. Reporting indicates the combined effect is legal and administrative: new national requirements plus new federal levers to enforce them, a mix likely to shape election administration and disputes as the country approaches 2026 [1] [2] [4].